Chancellor Gardens changes hands

Published in the Current

With its principal owner in bankruptcy, the company that owned Chancellor Gardens on Scott Dyer Road has sold the Cape Elizabeth assisted living home, as well as a sister facility in Saco, to Commonwealth Communities of Massachusetts. The home has been renamed Village Crossings of Cape Elizabeth.

It is the second turnover of a senior living facility on Scott Dyer Road in three months. In January, Haven Healthcare of Cromwell, Conn., took over the management of the Viking Nursing Home and Crescent House, with plans to take ownership in the next several months.

Abraham Gosman, who lives in Florida, was the majority owner of the company that owned Chancellor Gardens and Chancellor Place. He was also a founder of Carematrix, the company that managed the Chancellor properties. Carematrix will not continue its management functions, according to Beth Derrico, a spokeswoman for the company.

Gosman, who made millions in real estate and healthcare, filed for bankruptcy in 2001, according to William King of Development Specialists
Inc., the Miami-based firm that was appointed by the court as trustee for Gosman’s assets.

His filing was cited as an example of a problem some legislators see with the federal bankruptcy system – the unlimited homestead exemption.

Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wisc., told the U.S. Senate in March 2001 that Gosman, while owing as much as $233 million, was keeping a 64,000-square-foot mansion in West Palm Beach, Fla.

In his Maine business dealings, Gosman had guaranteed a mortgage taken out by the Chancellor company, with the two homes as collateral.

“The value (of the properties) was significantly less than the mortgage,” King said.

Rather than foreclosing on the homes, the lender agreed to cooperate in the sale of the properties and take the proceeds as partial payment of the debt, King said.

The change of ownership took effect March 1, bringing Chancellor Gardens and Chancellor Place in Saco into a company that already operates 12 nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities, six assisted living homes and four specialized hospitals in Massachusetts.

“This is our first step into Maine,” said David Calendrella, vice president of operations for Commonwealth Communities.

Last year Commonwealth bought two Massachusetts nursing homes from the same owners. “They proved to be quality facilities,” Calendrella said. That experience led to this recent deal.

“We’re very bullish on the Maine marketplace,” he said.

The company does not have significant plans to change things at Chancellor Gardens. “At the moment, the plan is to introduce ourselves as the new owners,” Calendrella said. No staff changes are in the works, he said. Everyone has signed on with the new owners.

Calendrella plans to pay close attention to hiring practices and employee supervision, in the wake of an employee’s February arrest on charges of stealing medication from several patients. He said the company would be open about any problems that might arise.

Alcohol on stage: What price the bottle?

Published in the Portland Phoenix

An ad campaign now being broadcast on Maine television stations warns parents that they are misleading themselves about teen drinking. The Maine Office of Substance Abuse conducted a study of Maine parents, and compared the results with the annual Maine Youth Drug and Alcohol Use Survey administered in schools all over the state.

Over 80 percent of Maine parents, the study shows, believe their kids have " not had more than a few sips of alcohol in their life. " But 65 percent of teens say they’ve had " more than a few sips of alcohol. "

And nearly every Maine parent — 98 percent of them, in a survey with a four-percent margin of error — believe their child hasn’t had alcohol in the past month. But over a third of teens — 38 percent — have, in fact, consumed alcohol in the last 30 days.

Alcohol is a part of adult life, and a part of young-adult life, teen life. At a recent community meeting in Cape Elizabeth, a parent asked teens why they drink. The response — aside from the predictable silence — was a question: " Why do adults drink? " That answer was even more predictable: silence from the adults.

As life on stage reflects life off-stage, so does alcohol appear in both worlds. It may have started, as Andrew Sokoloff suggests, in the distant past. " The list of alcoholic playwrights is a long, sad, and honorable one, " extending as far back as Shakespeare, he says. Sokoloff is the artistic director at Mad Horse Theater and says " the use of alcohol on stage depends mightily upon the time the play was written and the time it’s produced. "

Alcohol, in short, is part of an accurate portrayal of life. " Good playwrights . . . put alcohol in their plays for many of the same reasons people in real life drink: to kill pain, to tell the truth, to have fun, to feel more alive, to feel closer to someone, " Sokoloff says.

Anita Stewart, artistic director at Portland Stage Company, agrees. " The theater is often a mirror of our culture, and in our society alcohol has played and continues to play a tremendous role. "

Recent examples of alcohol on Maine stages include True West at Portland Stage, in which both main characters got drunk, one to drown his pain when confronting society and the other to distance himself from the realization that his sheltered experience was not the raw stuff of life a movie producer wanted.

Straitlaced Austin behaved like the stereotypical drunk most commonly found in college freshman dormitories: Barely able to stand and slurring words badly, a man at the end of the night sits on the floor surrounded by empty beer cans, singing to himself. It is a means by which playwright Sam Shepard shows the audience the depth to which Austin has sunk, without actually having a character come out and say, " Gosh, Austin, you look awful. " The alcohol is a vehicle for communicating a message.

Over at the St. Lawrence, the Cast put on Pvt. Wars, in which the three characters drink frequently in an Army hospital. It is a sign of their growing camaraderie that, as the play progresses, first one man drinks alone, then another joins him, and finally the third man takes up a glass as well. The message? He has joined the group, become part of at least the hospital society again, and may be moving more toward " normal, " despite his deep physical injuries and evident psychological distress.

And, most recently, there was the bottle of alcohol used by a newly empowered woman, rejecting the traditional social anesthetic and choosing instead to use it as a weapon to overpower a death-crazed doctor in Carolyn Gage’s Thanatron, performed by Cauldron & Labrys.

Stewart’s choice for most memorable alcohol-related scene is in Betrayal and Emma, by Harold Pinter, in which " a smart, together woman " tells her lover she is pregnant, while drinking vodka. " In the ‘70s that was normal; now it is unimaginable. I wonder if drunken scenes will ever have that same bone-chilling effect on me, " Stewart says.

Alcohol has yet to carry the same moral weight as smoking, Stewart says. " We get tons of complaints if someone lights up, even briefly, on stage, but no one seems to be that bothered by drinking, " she says.

Teen issues are beginning to get some attention in local theater, especially with David J. Mauriello’s To Bear Witness at the Players’ Ring, in which a teen holds a gun while contemplating his friend’s suicide. I have yet to see a drunk teen character on a local stage; the numbers say it’s time.

BACKSTAGE

• Watch this space for the first glimpse of the 2003/2004 season at the Players’ Ring in Portsmouth. Scuttlebutt is that they have had proposals from a bunch of new playwrights, as well as a version of The Hobbit and several rarely seen classic plays. When the group makes their decision, " Backstage " will get the word out so you can mark your calendars.

• Room to move: The Theater At Monmouth (theateratmonmouth.org) has a few design and production slots open for the summer, and improv and sketch comedy group TRATCO is looking for one or two women to join the cast (no_stache@yahoo.com).

• Carol Noonan headlines a benefit concert for the Public Theatre in Lewiston March 29. Showtime’s at 8 p.m., tickets are $15. It’s a great way to support this excellent theater, which is now showing a play, Gun-Shy, exploring what happens if your divorce isn’t working.

• Props to Bonny Eagle and Biddeford high schools, who move on to the states after winning the Southern Maine Regional Drama Festival last weekend in South Portland.

A parent’s green thumb: Bearing witness to the challenges of growing

Published in the Portland Phoenix

It’s really just a baseball hat. A blue Boston Red Sox hat, always perched on Justin Rasch’s head, especially when he’s not acting. But this hat, belonging to a sturdy eighth-grader from Rochester, New Hampshire, now has a place in the script of a locally written play: To Bear Witness, by David J. Mauriello.

The hat could have started there; it’s quite common for teens to wear hats these days. But it’s just riding coattails to the top. Rasch is taking acting classes at Arts Rochester. When Mauriello and Chuck Galle were looking for someone to play a 14-year-old, that’s where they looked.

" Half the kids in the class tried out for it, " Rasch said. " The kid knocked me out, " Galle said. Even with such high praise coming from his director, his hat stayed the same size. " Sometimes I think I’m more excited about it than he is, " said his mother.

Her son really wants to star on Saturday Night Live, but you can see him before he makes it there, by spending an evening at the Players Ring in Portsmouth. Both Rasch and his drama teacher at home, Kate Kirkwood, play key supporting roles in Mauriello’s sixth play at the Ring.

It started as a screenplay in the late 1980s, after Mauriello read an article about teen suicide and decided to explore the issue in script form. Now a play, the show has 16 scenes, a throwback to its film roots. The suicide scene is gone, and the audience never meets Danny, the boy who has killed himself months before the play begins.

The hat has appeared, now an important device in the show, used to signal father/son communication and camaraderie. Words have been changed, whole lines revamped. Mauriello admits he has a melodramatic tendency with dialogue, and while it remains throughout, it has been tempered by the cast, who made many suggestions. " I’m rewriting as I’m watching rehearsals, " Mauriello said before the play’s run began.

The actors tried out a lot of different angles in practice, to see how they worked or if they failed. " We don’t talk about having an affair. We’re all over each other on stage, " said Kirkwood (playing Diane Putnam) of her interaction with Frank DeMarco (played by Al Vautour).

The play is about nurturing roots and connections, between friends, neighbors, family. It contrasts 1980s ideals of success — money, power, domination — with those beginning to take hold in the 21st century — love, trust, respect. The characters are all very human, with honest differences separating them and deeply personal needs pulling them together.

Frank’s bizarre physical intimacy with nearly every character in the play springs from his need to connect with people. As a landscaper, he knows how to nurture plants, healing them and bringing them to their full, blossoming potential. With human beings, however, he is stuck.

As a father, husband, boss, and aspiring politician, he both resents and is mystified by others’ successes. His weakness is his son, from whom he desperately wants love, but who sees through the bullshit to Frank’s cheating heart.

The play walks the line between preaching and showing, and raises powerful questions about parenting. As Helen (played by Denise McDonough) notes, parents have a monopoly on their children, but only as long as there is truth and honesty between them. When those are lost, so are the kids.

A strong, old tree and a brand-new sapling are the metaphors for what Frank wants in his life and what he has. At a crossroads, he must choose to let the sapling die or revise his priorities to keep the tree alive. " He’s thrown everything in, " Kirkwood said of Mauriello’s writing, which includes a brief scene of heady philosophy as well as more botany than most stage productions.

Parents who are trying to keep strong connections as their kids grow up should see this show, which will cause them to step back and re-examine the priorities and assumptions behind however they choose to raise their offspring.

The cast, and their characters, are laid out as plants, needing love, honesty, and attention to flourish: The weed is expelled from the flower bed and the myriad not-quite-misfit plants that had been on the edge of the garden are brought together in a quiet, simple, and pleasing conclusion.

" I hope, " said Mauriello, " the audience is going to feel all of my characters have grown."

To Bear Witness
Written by David J. Mauriello. Directed by Chuck Galle. With Justin Rasch, Al Vautour, Denise McDonough, Paul J. Bell and Kate Kirkwood. At the Players Ring, Portsmouth, through March 9. Call (603) 436-8123.

BACKSTAGE

• Word is the soldiers over at the St. Lawrence, busy putting on Pvt. Wars, are getting lonely. It’s a fabulous show, and they’re there through March 9. Support the troops!

• Portsmouth screenwriter Nancy Grossman is a playwright on the verge of seeing the fruits of her first stage play, Therapist on the Verge. She’ll get her chance when it is read aloud at the Rice Public Library in Kittery, at 7 p.m., March 11.

• The Theater Project’s Al Miller corralled a group of fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-graders into performing a bilingual acting/singing show, Rose in Red, using traditional French folksongs. It created a lot of interest and plans to do a full bilingual show are in the works.

• Maybe Miller was warming up for the upcoming revision of his musical Matching Shadows with Homer, put on last year and set to reopen March 14, with some new writing, music, and a few new faces on stage as well.

• Camden playwright Robert Manns has several plays being produced in the next couple of months in the Belfast area. Get out the binocs: Wildlife and the environment are characters in some of his work.

Viking to see $1 million in renovations

Published in the Current and the American Journal

The Viking and Crescent House in Cape Elizabeth will see up to $1 million in renovations in the coming months and will be upgraded to become what its new owner calls “the facility of choice” in the area.

Ray Termini, president, CEO and owner of Haven Healthcare of Cromwell, Conn., met with Viking staff last month to announce the change of management. Haven has a consulting arrangement with the Viking pending state approval of a certificate of need for the change of ownership.

When the approval is complete, three to six months after the application is submitted, Haven will take over management from Duane Rancourt Sr., the current co-owner and administrator of the nursing home.

The certificate of need application has not yet been filed.

As of this month, Termini told the Current, Haven is operating 26 nursing homes throughout New England, with 3,200 patients and a similar number of employees.

Of those, four homes in Connecticut and one in Vermont have had more than one situation where residents were either subjected to “actual harm” or “immediate jeopardy,” since Haven took over management, according to federal documents and information from the Connecticut Department of Public Health.

Each affected one patient or a small number of them, and each has been rectified. Termini told the Current all of his facilities are in compliance.

Two of the problems found by Connecticut inspectors in May 2002 at Haven Health Center of New Haven are representative of the problems.

One patient was given only one-fourth the prescribed amount of a medication. Another resident was not properly restrained or attended while in a shower chair, resulting in the resident “almost falling out” of the chair, and suffering two scrapes on the head.

The nursing home was fined $600 by state authorities. Upon inspection in August 2002, the nursing home was found to have corrected the problems.

The Viking had much more serious problems prior to Haven’s arrival on the scene. In August 2002, Viking resident Shirley Sayre, 77, wandered out of the nursing home and drowned in a culvert across the street. As the family mourned, Viking was hit with an “immediate jeopardy” citation and over $30,000 in fines.

Money tight
Those fines came at a tough point for the nursing home, which faced running out of money by November.

State reimbursements for Medicare were late, and the company faced the tough choice of paying creditors or meeting payroll.

In a time when nursing homes are feeling financial pressure, Termini said Haven succeeds by making their nursing homes more attractive to residents and families than competing facilities.

Most nursing homes, he said, have 10 percent of their patients on private payment, 10 to 12 percent on federally funded Medicare payment and the rest on state-funded Medicaid payments.

Many are also not near full capacity, resulting in overhead costs with no revenue to make up for them.

Medicaid does not pay the full amount for services, forcing Medicaid-dependent homes into financial ruin, Termini said. Medicare pays $315 per day, while Medicaid pays $130 per day, no matter the services a patient requires.

Haven solves the problem by attracting higher-paying customers, and by making sure its homes are full.

“The only way to survive is to decrease dependency on Medicaid,” Termini said. Haven homes have 96 percent occupancy and over 30 percent non-Medicaid patients, he said.

Just that additional margin is enough to make the difference between a successful nursing home and one that is in trouble, he said.

Termini said attracting higher-paying residents takes work and said he will begin renovating the buildings as soon as he takes ownership.

New look, new faces
Resident rooms will get all new surfaces, including paint, flooring and window dressings, as well as electric beds, according to Patrick Keaveny, regional vice president for Haven Healthcare, who will be overseeing the renovation.

Gathering areas also will be renovated, with a new fine-dining area planned for what is now a “sunroom” space, and a bistro area in the assisted-living facility, Keaveny said.

A lounge area, corridor and office space will be converted into a large physical therapy, occupational and speech therapy room.

To staff that room, Haven will be hiring a new physical therapist and assistant, an occupational therapist and assistant, as well as a part-time speech therapist.

To get new blood into the rest of the staff, Keaveny plans to send recruiting mailings out to all the nurses in the area.

The changeover will not involve layoffs, however. “Everybody that has a job (at the Viking and Crescent House) is going to be an employee of Haven Healthcare,” Keaveny said.

All of this is dependent on state approval. While the certificate of need process is usually used for constructing a new healthcare facility, it is also used for transferring ownership, according to Cathy Cobb in the Maine Department of Human Services.

The process determines whether a company is “fit, willing and able to run a nursing home,” she said, and also makes sure costs to the state-funded Medicaid program will not increase.

The process involves an application, an initial hearing and then a public hearing and then a review of the application and any additional information, Cobb said.

Regulators look at the organization applying for the certificate, its financial plans and
the quality of care it provided elsewhere.

Moving the ad message

Published in the Current

As the Goodwill Industries trucks roll across the state of Maine, their new designs are thanks to a Cape Elizabeth man, who has found a way to make
money from the sides of trucks.

Don Mackenzie has founded Mobile Marketing Solutions, which sells space on what are, after all, basically moving billboards.

Mackenzie used to sell technology to trucking companies and was familiar with trucking fleets in other areas of the country that sold ads on the sides of their trucks.

Eight months ago, when Mackenzie and his family moved to Maine from Atlanta, he decided to put his idea in motion.

His first challenge was to find a trucking fleet that would work with him. He found it “very hard to find a fleet” that was interested. Most companies wanted just their own logos on the sides of their trucks, if there were any markings at all.

One day, when Mackenzie was driving somewhere, he saw a white truck with nothing really on its sides and followed it to a Goodwill store. When he called to ask if the company would be interested, he found that someone there had always wanted to do just exactly what he was proposing.

In exchange for an ongoing ad campaign for Goodwill on the side of one truck, Mackenzie’s fledgling company had its fleet.

Best of all, the Goodwill trucks run regular routes in populated areas, picking up donations at drop-off centers and also delivering goods to the company’s retail stores. Most trucking companies run their routes far from where people are, because traffic slows them down. And many of them run at night, again to avoid congestion.

Not Goodwill trucks, which are on the road for six to 10 hours per day.

“They’re always where the people are,” Mackenzie said.

He had the trucks fitted with what are called “changeable fleet graphic systems,” essentially easy-to-change billboards. Aluminum rails hold a heavy vinyl sheet tight against the side of the truck.

The vinyl itself is printed by a firm in Seattle that can put any graphic or text on the fabric. It takes a couple of hours to put on a sign, which Mackenzie often has done at Wagon Masters in Scarborough.

His goal is to get the company to $60,000 in revenue by June and triple that by next year. He wants to expand the business beyond Maine, into the New England region and then into the mid-Atlantic states.